


show me your insides, show me your secrets (show what you wanted, so i can be it)

by voxofthevoid



Series: lay your heart into my perfect machine [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Biting, Captain America Steve Rogers, Intercrural Sex, Light D/s, M/M, Mild Blood, Modern Bucky Barnes, Modern Steve Rogers, Non-Graphic Violence, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Oral Sex, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Prequel, Rough Sex, Spies & Secret Agents, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-13 05:09:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21488878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxofthevoid/pseuds/voxofthevoid
Summary: They took down a lab full of mutated animals today. It was normal enough at first, James with his metal arm and Steve with his shield, the two of them armed to the teeth with guns and knives. But then the creatures kept coming. Steve wrapped himself around a horse-sized something that might have been a wolf in another life and broke every one of its bones with a single, heaving squeeze of his limbs. James punched through the chest of a biped taller than him with his flesh arm and ripped its heart out for good measure.There was no pretending after that.James smiles at Steve, a small, heated thing.“I want you to fuck me until I can’t walk."“And if I say no?” Steve asks.James shrugs, and the gesture is nonchalant, but Steve can see the tension underneath.“Then I will be very disappointed, and I will leave and take my whiskey with me.” James tilts his head to the side, an animal-like motion that’s a strange cross between predatory and adorable. “But somehow, Captain, I don’t think you’ll say no.”-Captain America and the Winter Soldier are assigned a joint mission by their respective masters. They are strangers until they're not.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: lay your heart into my perfect machine [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1548889
Comments: 128
Kudos: 892





	show me your insides, show me your secrets (show what you wanted, so i can be it)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a new hot mess I’ve got in the works. Series is set to be 6 works, split into 4 oneshots and 2 multichaps. Set Post-EG, but guys, trust nothing 😇
> 
> As always, hit me up on my tumblr if you have questions, concerns, anything.

Steve sees the glass first, a quarter full with amber liquid and continuing to be filled. He follows the thin stream of alcohol to the dark bottle and the metal hand wrapped around its neck.

Barnes doesn’t react to Steve’s entry, just calmly continues pouring the drink. It’s gutsy, if nothing else, considering that this is Steve’s room, which he just _opened_ from the outside.

Clint would probably say something like _Fucking Russians, man_, but Steve hasn’t yet gone down that particular Hollywood rabbit hole.

Steve briefly contemplates an appropriate course of action but then settles with a sigh on just stepping inside and closing the door behind him. Barnes calmly sets the bottle down and finally looks at Steve. He smiles, all calm like they get together for drink and bullshit every other Friday evening, and picks up the glasses, holding one close to his chest and extending the other to Steve, an invitation more than an offer.

“No, thank you,” Steve says flatly.

Barnes laughs. The sound goes right to Steve’s head, seeping under the skin to settle as a gently throbbing headache. It tugs at other parts of him too, and he can’t help but notice how good Barnes looks in jeans and a white shirt, the top buttons left open to expose his throat and a bit of his clavicle. There’s something soft about it, a stark contrast to the cold, metallic lines of Barnes’s left arm and the equally violent capacity etched into his bulging muscles. It’s not that Steve’s judging; that would make him one hell of a hypocrite, especially after today. But the man currently grinning at him from the center of a cheap motel room is nothing like the brutal soldier Steve has seen until now.

“It is not poisoned, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Barnes says.

It’s possibly the longest sentence he’s said to Steve. His accent is more pronounced this way, the lingering ghost of his mother tongue twisting the sounds into fascinating shapes. Steve’s no linguist, but he can’t deny the spark of interest he feels. Then again, that likely has more to do with the smoky rasp of Barnes’s voice than the words themselves.

“Wouldn’t work if it were,” Steve responses after a too-long pause. He takes a tentative step forward. “You should know.”

Barnes inclines his head in agreement. His smile doesn’t flicker. He walks towards Steve, and he’s always had this eerie grace to him, but Steve’s unsettled, again, by seeing it in this aggressively mundane setting rather than in the adrenaline haze of a firefight.

He blames that for how his fingers curl docilely around the glass Barnes pushes into his hand.

“Then this should be fine,” Barnes says, taking a generous sip from his own glass.

Steve just blinks at him.

And then he forgets how to make his eyelids work, staring wide-eyed and frozen as Barnes wraps his free hand around Steve’s wrist and raises it, glass and all, to his mouth. Lips that look soft as silk and sweet to kiss touch the rim, and Steve’s brain shorts out a little.

Barnes raises his head but takes his sweet time letting go of Steve’s hand. The skin he touched tingles, though that can only be in Steve’s head.

“See,” Barnes murmurs, voice pitched low. “Safe.”

“Barnes,” he manages to choke out. “What are you doing in my room?”

The moment the question’s out, Steve wishes he could take it back. Barnes’s eyes light up, and all this time, Steve thought they were blue, but now, with their bodies so close together, he can see that they’re more of a grey-blue, one color dominating over the other depending on light and angle. It makes the artist in him twitch for a brush between his fingers. Steve curls his hands into fists so that he won’t do something stupid.

The forced restraint doesn’t do much to stifle the urge. There’s just something about those eyes that makes it impossible for Steve to look away.

The Winter Soldier was fascinating even when he was just holographic data on Steve’s touchdesk. Meeting him – the two of them partnered for a mission that is practically a social experiment as far as S.H.I.E.L.D and the Red Room are concerned – did little to dampen Steve’s interest. But there has always been a distance between them. Barnes was cold, Steve was polite, and they made a brutally efficient team, but there was no camaraderie to speak of.

Until today.

That still doesn’t explain why Barnes has manifested in the middle of Steve’s room and seems hellbent on robbing him of a good twelve hours of sleep.

Something cold pokes him on the cheek.

Steve jerks back a little, his reaction disproportionate to the harmless touch. Barnes blinks, mouth still curved into a sly little smile. One of his hands is in the air between them, one metal finger extended. The other brings his glass to his lips for a good, long drink.

Steve watches the bob of his Adam’s apple a little too keenly.

“You didn’t hear a word I said,” Barnes says. It’s not a question. “I would hate that, but I will make an exception for you. I climbed in through your window.”

“Barnes,” Steve says, and he hates how increasingly helpless he feels each time he says Barnes’s name. “What the actual fuck?”

Barnes sighs. His smile turns lopsided, and Steve didn’t know he knew the lines of this man’s face well enough to read exasperation in that crooked curve and the faint narrowing of his eyes.

“It’s James,” Barnes says and promptly drains his glass. He fixes Steve with a challenging stare. “You going to drink that?”

Steve takes a sip out of an odd blend of stubbornness and self-preservation, and sure, it’s stupid, but he doesn’t drop dead on the spot so there’s that. And anyway, Barnes drank from this glass too. Steve saw it wet his lips, saw his throat swell.

It’s whiskey.

“This won’t work either,” Steve says, holding the glass out to Barnes who takes it without comment and knocks it back. Steve thinks belatedly that if pressed, he’d have guessed that Barnes drank vodka, so maybe he’s not as free of that Hollywood rabbit-hole as he thought.

“I know,” Barnes says, turning away, both glasses in hand. He sets them down on the table but doesn’t pour any more whiskey. “I’m trying to seduce you.”

“_What_?”

The sound Barnes makes is halfway between a laugh and a scoff. He turns back around, and he’s smiling again, wider now, the expression almost carefree. It makes him look younger, though he can’t be much old anyway. Around Steve’s age, most likely. Sure, Steve looks a good decade younger than thirty-nine, but the serum doesn’t halt aging, just slows it down. He bets it’s the same for Barnes.

It’s not a very exact science. Until seven hours ago, Steve thought he was the only one who successfully survived the Erskine Experiment, and he has a feeling that Barnes used to be under the same illusion.

Barnes glides forward and doesn’t stop until he’s back in Steve’s space again, pushing confidently against his body like it never even occurred to him that his presence will be rejected. And he’s not wrong, not really, though that makes Steve a certified dumbass.

“I’m trying to seduce you,” Barnes says, very slowly as if to make sure Steve understands. Steve doesn’t know how to tell him that not hearing the words wasn’t the issue the first time around. “And you are making it very difficult, standing around with all your clothes still on.”

In spite of the sheer absurdity of the situation, Steve laughs. It’s a little hysteric, incredulity warring with genuine amusement. Barnes gives him a bemused smile, and if Steve didn’t know better, he’d say he looks endeared by Steve’s laughter.

He calms down, almost as abruptly as he lost it, and takes a moment to just look at Barnes, who meets his eyes calmly, expectantly.

“I’d say I’m flattered,” Steve says drily, “but I don’t think that’s very appropriate.”

“Why not? Am I not, ah, your type?”

Barnes is what the universe would create if it took everything Steve found attractive in the male form and poured it into one man. 

“That’s irrelevant,” Steve says, as calmly as he can. “I respect your choices, but I have no interest in being the target of a honeypot mission.”

Barnes gives him a long, slow blink.

“What?” he asks delicately. Then he shakes his head, still not looking away from Steve. “This isn’t a honeypot, Captain.”

Barnes lays a hand on Steve’s shoulders, and Steve puts a foot back with every intention of throwing the rest of his body after it, but then he just…doesn’t. He stands there, rooted to the floor, Barnes’s hand a heavy weight on his shoulders, burning even through the leather of his jacket and the shirt underneath.

“These aren’t orders,” Barnes clarifies, stepping closer, too close. They can feel each other breathe like this, and it fucks Steve up. “I’m not fucking you because the Red Room wants me to.”

“I’m supposed to believe you?” Steve manages to ask, though it’s embarrassing how hoarse his voice has become.

Barnes smiles winningly.

“Yes,” he says, and it’s illegal, the coy sweep of his long, dark lashes over his bright, beautiful eyes. “You know why I want this.”

“Barnes–”

“James,” Barnes says, more than a little sharply.

“I – fine, James–”

And Steve stops, choking on that sole, seductive syllable. There’s an intimacy to calling this man by his name. Steve wouldn’t think twice of it in any other situation, but here, with Bar – with James crowding close with clear intent, using his name feels like surrender, and the worst of it is that Steve can’t even feel bad about it. The knots in his gut are tight with anticipation.

“James,” he says again, lower this time, kinder maybe, and James’s face brightens with pleasure. He’s beautiful. “Tell me why.”

James huffs a laugh, like Steve’s being very silly. When he speaks, his tone is indulgent, though Steve is almost entirely distracted from that by the hand that slides along his shoulder and up his neck to rest gently against his jaw.

“You have it,” says James. “The serum. So do I.”

They took down a lab full of mutated animals today, officially and messily ending their joint mission. It was normal enough at first, James with his metal arm and Steve with his shield, the two of them armed to the teeth with guns and knives. But then the creatures kept coming. Steve wrapped himself around a horse-sized something that might have been a wolf in another life and broke every one of its bones with a single, heaving squeeze of his limbs. James punched through the chest of a biped taller than him with his flesh arm and ripped its heart out for good measure.

There was no pretending after that.

“Yeah,” Steve breathes, and he can still feel an echo of that visceral jolt of shock and awe and bone-deep recognition. “We do.”

James’s smile is a small, heated thing.

“I want you to fuck me until I can’t walk.”

Steve sucks in a sharp breath. James rubs his thumb against the curve of Steve’s jaw, the motion absent-minded and soothing. His eyes don’t leave Steve’s, and the look in them is less question and more demand.

“And if I say no?” Steve asks.

James shrugs, and the gesture is nonchalant, but Steve can see the tension underneath.

“Then I will be very disappointed, and I will leave and take my whiskey with me.” James tilts his head to the side, an animal-like motion that’s a strange cross between predatory and adorable. “But somehow, Captain, I don’t think you’ll say no.”

Steve swallows.

“It’s Steve,” he says, and that’s not an answer except in all the ways it is, and the sudden brightening of James’s eyes say he knows exactly what Steve is not saying.

James telegraphs his intentions loudly as he leans in, inch by inch. Steve stays right as he is, not leaning in but certainly not pulling away, watching unblinkingly as James’s face gets closer and closer until Steve can feel the warmth of it on his own.

But James stops like that, a breath away from a kiss.

Waiting, Steve realizes, for him to make the move.

He hesitates. He just stands there, and it’s barely a second, but a hundred thoughts flicker through his brain, most of them half-formed, though the gist is clear enough. This is a bad idea, S.H.I.E.L.D and the Red Room are reluctant allies on a very good day, and James is beautiful and lethal and everything that gets Steve’s blood hot, but they’re also likely to be on opposing ends of a mission sooner than later and–

Steve kisses him, closing that scant space.

It’s awkward. It always is, learning the shape of someone’s mouth for the first time. But then James angles his face up and Steve steps forward a little, and suddenly, they’re kissing like they’ve been doing it three times a day since they were fifteen.

James has soft lips, softer than they looked, and it drives Steve crazy. There’s a burn in his gut that aches for more, driving him to pull James closer, kiss him harder, tongue and teeth all taken with the plump softness of his mouth. James is pliant in Steve’s arms, and that’s a little miracle too, the way James melts against his body and lets Steve kiss him with growing frenzy. He licks over James’s lips, tongue flicking at the seam, and James opens for him with a sigh.

The heat and taste of him is the last straw. The restraint he’s been clinging to since the moment he opened the door and saw James setting his carefully cliched scene disintegrates into raw hunger.

He licks into James with every intention of devouring him, and James _lets him_.

-

Steve doesn’t have a very clear memory of how they make it to bed, but he knows they ruined the plaster of at least one wall and broke a table leg or two in the process. He doesn’t give a fuck, would be happy enough to trash the whole room and pay out of his own pocket for it, because it’s worth it to have James like this, spread out under Steve, naked except for the shirt that Steve told him to keep on. It’s unbuttoned, the flimsy white of it framing the sculpted torso bared to Steve’s eyes.

“Do you plan to just look?” James asks, but he’s smiling too wide and sounds too pleased for Steve to take him seriously.

“Maybe I do,” Steve says, raising an eyebrow. “Your fault for being so fucking pretty.”

James flushes, cheeks reddening with more than just pleasure. Steve follows the splash of color, first with his eyes and then with his fingers before leaning down to press his lips to it, tracing the heat all the way to James’s mouth. James parts his lips sweetly, an invitation that Steve claims eagerly. He could get addicted to the taste of James’s mouth, drown in the heat of it, but the most maddening thing is how the shape of it already feels carved into his memory. Steve knows this isn’t a night he’ll ever forget, but god, he hopes he won’t regret it either because he has a feeling James will haunt him either way.

“Stop thinking,” James says against Steve’s lips. “I can hear you.”

“You read minds now?”

“Sure,” he says, laughing, and Steve likes that they can talk during this, can smile and laugh and rib each other like they’ve been doing it all their lives. It’s rare, that level of ease with a man he barely knows. “It’s how I knew you wanted fuck me against a wall.”

“We’re in a bed,” Steve points out, neither denying nor confirming anything.

“These walls would not survive us,” James says, and when Steve pulls back to look at him, he’s got that playful glint in his eyes.

Steve kisses him again but doesn’t linger no matter how much he wants to spend a good two hours just kissing James. Other parts of their bodies are demanding attention, and Steve’s hungry for that too. He mouths his way down James’s throat, and he knows every mark he leaves will be swallowed up in a matter of hours, but it still sends a sharp thrill through him to hear James’s voice break on whimpering cries and see his throat and chest marked with deep red indents.

Steve licks at a nipple, and James’s whole body jolts. Steve does it again, then seals his mouth over it, sucking gently. James pants, fingers sliding into Steve’s hair and gripping tight, but it’s not until Steve sets his teeth to the little bud that James’s voice rises into a high-pitched keen.

“You like that, huh,” Steve says, raising his head to grin at James’s flushed face. “Like it hurting.”

“A-are you complaining,” James asks, voice a wrecked rasp that makes Steve preen.

“Not at all,” Steve tells him, beaming beatifically, before sinking his teeth into the sensitive areola.

James cries out.

Steve has to do it again, just to keep hearing that sound. James makes him work for it; his reactions are most intense when Steve does something for the first time. He’s wild when he’s overwhelmed, fingers tearing at Steve’s scalp, body bucking, his cries loud and unfettered. But he’s equally exquisite when he’s trying to cling to fraying control, his heaving chest and quiet keening all going right to Steve’s cock.

James is no better, his cock dripping precome by the time Steve settles into a crouch between his legs. It’s a pretty thing, long and flushed red. Steve licks a lazy stripe up the length of it, just for a taste, but James shudders like Steve’s killing him.

Steve takes the head into his mouth, sliding his tongue over the hot flesh and dipping into the slit. He’s pleasantly caught up in James’s pleasure and doesn’t hear what he’s saying until the fingers gripping his hair tug with unmistakable intent.

He looks up without pulling off and his gut clenches at the look on James’s face. He’s halfway to fucked-out already, cheeks red and eyes dark and mouth swollen from Steve’s teeth.

Steve hums around the dick in his mouth, half a question, half a tease.

James whimpers, but he drags in a deep, shuddering breath and manages a modicum of composure.

“In me,” he gasps, fingers clenching in Steve’s hair again. “Put your – your fingers. Inside me.”

The fire in Steve roars into an inferno.

He lets James’s dick slip out of his mouth long enough to rasp out, “Lube.”

He’s not even all that surprised when James reaches under the pillows with the hand not singlehandedly turning Steve bald and emerges with a tube clutched in his fist.

“You were confident,” Steve asks, lips brushing James’s cock as he speaks. “And slutty.”

James laughs, sounding surprised.

“I know what I want,” he says, meeting Steve’s gaze with eyes more black than grey-blue. “And I know how to get it. You were not subtle, Steve, with the way you looked at me.”

Steve smiles and returns his mouth to James’s cock. He can’t argue against that. James roused his libido at first sight, it’s just that Steve thought he hid it better. Maybe if he fucks James hard enough, he’ll forget Steve’s apparent thirst, forget everything but the heat of their bodies together on this night.

He sets about that gleefully. He doesn’t stop sucking James as he wets his fingers, but he doesn’t quite commit to it either. He doesn’t want James to come like this, doesn’t want him to come at all until Steve is inside him and, as promised, fucking him till he can’t walk.

He tries to press in with a finger and rears back when it slides right in.

“James, you–” is all he can say before he runs out of words and settles for staring at James with an expression that makes him shiver.

“Yeah,” James says, and he it’s a damn skill, how he sounds smug and needy at the same time. “I came prepared.”

Steve slides in another finger, tentative until James opens up without a whisper for that too. And he is wet inside, hot and soft in that familiar way that always goes right to Steve’s head.

“Needed it that bad?” Steve asks, and it’s not judgement, but Steve can’t deny the edge to his teasing. “Fucking desperate, aren’t you?”

He’s ready to tone it down, apologize and play nice, and but James sucks in a sharp breath and his eyes flutter shut, something beautifully helpless about the whole thing.

“Yeah,” he says, and god, James has never sounded so small, and Steve loves it with a guilty thrill.

James arches off the bed with a wide-eyed shout when Steve shoves a third finger into him without warning and doesn’t stop until it’s buried to the last knuckle. He fucks James with them, rough and with intent, stretching him out while Steve sucks idly on his cock, mouthing around the head mostly, enjoying the way James keeps gushing on his tongue.

It doesn’t take long before James’s loose enough to send the last of Steve’s patience out the window.

He straightens up, and James whines at first, arching his hips to chase the dual sensations of Steve’s mouth on his cock and fingers in his ass, but he settles down all nice and sweet when he sees Steve slicking up his dick.

Steve pauses for a second, eyeing the pretty sight of James spread out under him.

“Turn around,” he orders, coming to a decision.

The hasty, clumsy way James hurries to obey goes right to his head – well, both his heads. And fuck, that’s one hell of a view too. Steve takes a moment to just grope James, wet fingers digging into soft flesh and leaving faint pink marks that fade all too soon. He slaps one cheek, a gentle tap meant to just make it bounce a little.

And fucking bounce it does, but James’s startled cry is even better.

“You like that?” Steve asks, already knowing the answer.

“Yes,” James says, laughing, voice pitched high. “Shit, _yes_.”

Steve presses the head of his dick against James’s little hole, gut clenching when the dark furl of it twitches hungrily. He teases, he doesn’t deny that, rubbing the tip back and forth, watching precome smear on James’s crack.

“You didn’t bring condoms,” Steve points out, and he knows it’s an odd statement to make when he’s a breath away from pushing into James, but he also knows how James will respond.

“We don’t need it.”

Steve hums and fucks right in.

He manages, through the sudden searing _heat_, to bring his palm down hard on James’s ass, and it’s worth it for the broken shout that echoes around the room, but Steve’s no less affected, eyes crossing at the way James clenches around him, muscles tightening like they want to squeeze Steve’s dick off.

He has to stop, balls-deep in James and breathless with it, but James has other ideas, though he must be struggling too, spread so wide around Steve’s cock.

“Move,” James snaps, and Steve can’t tell whether it’s pain or need that’s turning his voice into that weak, reedy thing.

“Gimme a second,” Steve says, squeezing James’s hips. “You’re fuckin’ tight.”

And James, the asshole, clenches deliberately around Steve, but Steve can’t tell who wins here because yeah, he shoves an impossible centimeter deeper into James like he’s trying to crawl bodily inside him, but James is the one who screams, metal fingers tearing a pillow almost in half.

Steve drapes his body over James, pressing his chest to his broad back. James is hot and solid under him, and he buckles a little when Steve’s weight settles on him but doesn’t fall, not even when Steve sinks his teeth into his shoulder.

“_Fuck_ me,” James gasps, a demand and a plea, so desperate that Steve just gives in.

He pulls out, as far as he can bear, and slams back in, their bodies making harsh sounds as they connect violently. James whines, heaving for breath under Steve, but Steve wants more, wants him screaming. Pleasure drags fever-hot along his cock when he pulls out of James and jolts sharply up his spine on the frantic thrust back inside.

He can’t stop once he starts; James is all wet heat and rippling tightness, taking Steve like he’s been born for it and clutching at his cock like he wants him to stay buried in him forever. Steve clings to James with hands and teeth and tries not to lose his damn mind as he’s swallowed up by their joined bodies.

And he could come like this, let the tension of the last few days pour into James and fall peacefully asleep after, but James, it seems, has other ideas.

Steve’s head is pulled up from James’s back by fingers twisting into his hair, and a moment of disorientation is followed by admiration for the way James is supporting their upper halves with just his left hand. But then he yanks at Steve’s hair, a demand that has no accompanying voice when the only sounds James seems able to make are the gutted cries Steve fucks out of him.

Steve slows but doesn’t stop, grinding into James with lazy rolls of his hips.

“What is it?” he asks, groaning when James’s answer is to tighten his grip in Steve’s hair. The sting is pleasant, but the defined bulge of James’s arm muscles is what distracts Steve. James pulls again, the gesture sharp and urgent. “Christ. Use your words, James.”

James shudders under him, a violent, full-bodied motion that makes Steve abandon all other thought and screw into him a few times, harsh and frantic, before bringing himself back under control.

“_James_.”

“Harder,” James snaps, the word forced out from between gritted teeth. “Fuck me harder, I fucking know you can.”

Steve gives it to him harder, thrust turning deeper, every push and pull dragging his cock along every pulsing inch of James's walls. But James isn’t satisfied; Steve knows before James even says the words, can hear it in the growl that reverberates in his throat.

“More,” James demands, pulling at Steve’s hair again. “I’m the only one in the goddamn world who can take you, so give it to me, give me _everything_.”

Steve hears the words with his body, not his mind. He slams into James, doesn’t hold back, and it’s terrifying, the way his blood burns at the potential of it. Steve doesn’t know what to call the noise that escapes his mouth, but it sends a shiver up his spine.

James howls, throwing his head back with it. His hand falls away from Steve’s hair to slap the headboard, fingers digging into the flimsy wood. It breaks under the touch, shuddering into splinters.

Steve pulls back, only to shove James down with a hand between his shoulder blades. His body collapses at the slightest suggestion, but Steve keeps his hips where they are. The glistening arch of James’s back is a sight he’ll never forget, but Steve doesn’t linger to enjoy it. He can’t, not when James’s words are still ringing in his head, lighting a fire under his skin.

He bends over James again, bracing himself on the mattress on either side of the prone body under him. He feels like an animal, a wolf mounting something sweet and helpless, never mind that James is anything but.

He lowers his head and nudges James’s long hair aside with his nose so Steve can murmur into his ear.

“Beg me for it.”

James tightens convulsively around Steve’s cock.

“Fuck me,” James says, and there’s a tremble in his voice, but his words are all too clear, “until I can’t walk. Please, Steve, I need it.”

Steve rewards the answer with a single, violent thrust. James grunts, sheets tearing under his hands, and yeah, Steve will be paying out of his own pocket for this.

“Might break you,” Steve says, pressing a taunting kiss to the shell of James’s ear. It reddens at the attention.

He doesn’t really mean it. James can take it, that’s whole damn point, but he wants to say it and he does, something flaring white-hot in his gut at the thought of James falling to pieces under him.

James scoffs, though there’s a strain to the sound that goes right to Steve’s dick.

“Try your worst,” James says.

And well, Steve would hate to disappoint him.

It’s hard to let go, past that initial, helpless reaction to anything Steve’s dumb brain perceives as a challenge. It’s been less than a decade since he survived the Erskine Experiment, and sometimes, the only thing that feels familiar about his body is the sheer control he must exert over it every hour of every day. It’s fine, sometimes, to lose control. Steve can break a spoon or two, sacrifice a chair or a window, but weapons and human bodies require painstaking delicacy. It’s second nature, now, to live with his limbs held tightly to himself, to touch things with the gentleness he’d afford a newborn kitten.

And here is James, begging Steve to break him on his cock.

It’s as terrifying as it’s exhilarating.

Steve wants to ask if James is sure, allay his own uncertainty, but James is moving before he can, using what little leverage he has to drive his body back against Steve’s cock. James is strong, as strong as Steve, and Steve’s breath is punched out of his lungs to feel all that power grinding into him. He responds, can’t not, and this time, he’s the one whose fingers rip holes in the sheets as he clutches them tight.

He gives James what he wants, fucks him like they’ll die without it, and it’s shocking, how little it takes for that to feel true. Steve’s swept up in it, his body spiraling out of his control, limbs burning with wild want. He screws his eyes shut, all of him narrowed to where he’s tearing into James, cock pulling out before ramming in deep, carving James’s heat open, taking it for himself. It’s brutal, cruel, and Steve sinks into the violence of it, losing himself more and more with each passing moment, each claiming thrust.

Under him, James is screaming, and he doesn’t stop for a long time.

He comes untouched, and it’s not that Steve wanted him to, just that the building frenzy in his own head made him forget, but then, it doesn’t matter. Both of James’s hands are clenched in the torn sheets, but his ass is rippling around Steve’s cock, milking him savagely, and his scream rises into a fever-pitch before dying, abruptly, with a punched-out whine.

It hits Steve with no warning. He gasps, breathless, at the constricting heat around his cock, and then he’s spilling into James, shouting as his orgasm tears through him.

James whimpers as if in sympathy, and he’s limp under Steve now, lower half held up only by the cock screwing mercilessly into him. Steve pants into James’s neck, breathing in the salt-sweet scent of him.

They collapse together, Steve melting to James’s body, knowing he can take it.

His whole body’s a thing of pulsing heat, muscles warm from exhaustion the way they rarely are after sex because his lovers, no matter how strong or built, just can’t handle the kind of strength that would make Steve heave for breath. And it’s hot inside James too, Steve’s cock drenched in its own release and still–

“You’re hard,” James says, sounding so small and wrecked that Steve barely recognizes the smooth-talking tempter that ambushed him.

“Yeah,” Steve breathes, tongue pushing out a strand of long brown hair that somehow ended up in his mouth. “Not done with you yet.”

It’s not a question, but Steve tries to inject a certain tentativeness into his movements, taking his sweet time lifting his body from James’s and pulling his cock out, not all the way, just enough that James can feel the way Steve is preparing to push back into him.

Steve braces for James to shake his head and nope right out. A quick, groping touch tells him that James’s is cock is soft between his legs, though there’s something unbearably hot about the way James whines at the touch and tries to move away, which only makes him squirm on Steve’s dick, the sensation tearing twin groans from them both. Steve takes pity on him, letting go with a last, playful squeeze.

James shudders, under and around Steve, and Steve can’t help pushing in a little, though he forces himself to still.

It takes a moment for James to speak, and when he does, his voice is a little clearer and no less wrecked.

“Though you were not done with me,” he says, and well, Steve can take a hint.

It starts out gentler than before, and the cause is half-concern, half-sensitivity, but then James grunts something that might be an insult that Steve’s head is too mushy to really register, but the tone is sharp enough that his reaction is instinctive.

He grabs James by the hair, the long strands slick with sweat and easy to use as a handle. James yelps when Steve pulls his head back, but the sound dies as a broken whimper. It’s one hell of a sight, James’s muscles tense and gleaming, his throat bared in forced supplication. Steve leans in, sinks his teeth into the side of James’s neck, and lets his wounded cry fuel the mad frenzy of his body.

James cries out, and he can’t muffle a single sound with Steve keeping his throat arched. The sounds shudder through Steve, coiling in his gut as bright, blinding heat. Under his teeth, he can feel James tremble and whimper, and it’s heady, addictive, and he loses himself, wholly and willingly.

He bites down harder, breaks skin, and the bitter tang of his blood is what sends him over the edge a second time.

After his body has stopped shaking and his cock has finally gone soft, Steve pulls out of James very gently, stroking his flank in sympathy when he hisses at the sensation. James is a loose heap on the mattress, and even without seeing his face, Steve can imagine the fucked-out expression on his face. It makes him puff up despite his exhausted satisfaction.

The warm glow in his chest remains until he looks down at his dick and sees the red trickled across the length of it.

Steve’s blood turns to ice.

“James,” he chokes out, only to find that he’s got no words left.

A questioning hum rises from the body under him. Steve forces his tongue to unstick from the roof of his mouth.

“You’re bleeding,” he says, the horror in his own voice making him flinch again. “I – I made you bleed.”

He expects – well, he expects a reaction. Horror to match his, maybe. Accusations, because it doesn’t matter that James asked for harder, wanted it rough, when Steve should have damn well known to keep himself in check.

But instead, James only reacts with another hum, and if Steve didn’t know better, he’d say it sounds _pleased_.

Does he know better?

“James?” Steve prods, the immediacy of his horror fading in the face of sheer confusion.

There’s a sigh. James laboriously turns over. Steve’s hands hover nervously over his body, wanting to touch him and ease the transition but scared that the help will be unwelcome or, worse, that he’ll hurt James again. It’s not very rational, a part of him realizes that, but it doesn’t seem to matter.

James blinks up at him with half-lidded eyes. His face is a picture of lazy pleasure. Something in Steve instinctually relaxes at the sight.

“Good,” James says, a corner of his mouth curling into a faint smile. “Means you did what I asked you to.”

“You’re bleeding,” Steve repeats, a little louder like that will magically change James’s reaction into one more predictable, sensible.

James’s smile sharpens into a smirk.

“I like it,” he says.

And the last of the horror drains right out of Steve.

“Oh,” he mumbles, unable to look away from James’s eyes. The smirk widens, turns smug, and it makes Steve itch to counter, somehow, and the only way he can think of wiping that expression off is to kiss James.

So he does.

They make out lazily for a long time, side-by-side on the bed. It’s the mess on their bodies turning from satisfying and messy to congealed and gross that prompts Steve to pull away, already missing the shape of James’s mouth.

James pouts after him. Steve doesn’t even know what to do with that expression, but it makes his heart ache.

But then James looks down at himself and a grimace says his thoughts have aligned with Steve’s. He also looks at the torn sheets, sadly deflated pillows, and broken headboard. When he looks at Steve, there’s mischief written across his whole face.

“It’s good we did not have neighbors.”

“I’ll pay double,” Steve says resignedly.

James laughs, stretches, and looks at his lower half with an expression that’s a blend of disgust and betrayal.

“We’re shifting to my room,” he says firmly. “But we will wash first.”

“Thought you couldn’t walk,” is what Steve responds with, for some damn reason.

“You will carry me of course,” James says, raising an eyebrow at Steve like he should have realized it already, and there’s something so unbearably appealing about this man that it drives Steve a little crazy.

“Of course,” he agrees, smiling helplessly.

-

His bladder wakes him at some unholy hour.

A quick look at his phone tells him it’s only some time past three. He doesn’t know when he fell asleep, but it couldn’t have been more than two hours ago. At the beginning, he thought he wouldn’t – couldn’t – sleep with a near-stranger in his bed. But it was surprisingly easy to relax with James in his arms. He burrowed into Steve’s body like he was someone much smaller than he was, and there was just something about James’s scrunched-up face and the soft little sounds he made when he found a comfortable position that lulled Steve into a sense of complacency, almost security.

He fell asleep with James’s heart beating in tandem with his.

He wakes with his face buried in an armpit, but that has its charm too.

He does his business and stumbles back to bed. And he knows, the moment his knees hit the mattress, that James is awake.

“Hey,” Steve says, sliding back under the covers.

The bed is warm where he was lying, and he settles into it, squirming close to James, whose body loses its tension with slow, clenched breaths.

“Hey,” Steve says again, gentler this time. “Did I wake you?”

“Yes,” James says hoarsely, and Steve finds himself oddly charmed by the bluntness. He wraps himself more octopus-like around James who makes a grumpy noise but melts into the touch, squirming around until Steve’s spooning him, their bodies slotting together like they know nothing better.

Steve thinks they’ll fall back asleep like this. And maybe James does, his breathing slow and even, but Steve can’t. He’s comfortable, pleasantly buried in the covers and pressed all along James, but his mind is too active, flitting from one thought to the next without rhyme or reason.

The mission – James’s blood-soaked fist – Sitwell’s awkward grin when he gave Steve the mission – that one trick shot Clint made in Rio – how James looks perched by a window with rifle in hand – the competence in every line of his body and how it softens when he’s naked in Steve’s bed – James’s mouth, his eyes, _James_.

Steve buries his face in James’s long hair and nuzzles a little. He’s very aware, suddenly, of the softness and warmth of James’s body. He sighs when his cock begins to stir. If glaring down at the overeager thing would get it to calm down, he would, but as it stands, the best he can do is twitch his hips a little away from James and hope this won’t wake him again.

He has no such luck.

“You seem to have a problem there.”

Steve sighs heavily and tries to hide his face in James’s neck like an ostrich burying its head in the sand. It works until James presses his lower half back against Steve with unmistakable intent.

“Thought you wanted to sleep,” Steve complains.

“You woke up me up, and now we are both awake. Parts of you especially,” James says, and there’s no doubting the amusement in his voice. “We might as well enjoy it.”

Steve’s face is flaming from embarrassment, but the heat in his gut is there for a wholly different reason.

He presses a kiss to James’s hair and pulls back, sweeping the hair away from his neck and the side of his face. James shivers at the gesture and tilts his head back. It’s awkward to kiss in this angle. Rank, too, both their mouths rancid with sleep. By silent agreement, they keep to closed lips and the gentlest nips.

Steve thinks he won’t mind too much even if it gets wet and dirty. There’s something about James that makes Steve want to get in him at the most primal level, merge their bodies into one, pulsing entity. He doesn’t feel that kind of desire often. He can’t remember the last time he did, though he knows he has. The sheer intensity is familiar, but in a distant way he can’t grasp. It’s unsettling when he thinks too much about it, but he likes it anyway.

He gropes along James’s sides, fingers sliding over smooth skin until they find a long, ragged scar twisting around one side of James’s hips. Steve’s body can no longer cling to scars, but he has retained a few he got before the experiment, the worst of it a burn mark on his right temple. He wonders if it’s the same for James, but he doesn’t ask, contenting himself with lingering over the cool, raised skin, paying keen attention to the slightest sign of discomfort from James. There’s none, only a shaky breath when Steve’s hand creeps further to the front, skirting James’s cock without quite touching.

“Can I?” he asks, and this time, James’s shudder makes his own body tremble.

“Yes,” James breathes. “Please.”

He’s not hard when Steve takes him in hand, but he’s not quite soft either. Steve’s always liked this, holding another man’s cock in his grip, just touching and feeling the silky heat of it.

“Steve, please.”

“Ssh,” Steve murmurs, nosing at James’s cheek. “It’s alright. Easy.”

James shudders, and the tension that gripped his body when Steve cupped his cock drips out of him, slow and sweet.

“That’s it,” Steve says, pleased and oddly possessive of the way James unspools against him. “I’ve got you.”

“Steve,” James says, but it’s a name without intent, like he can’t help but say it.

“I’ve got you,” Steve repeats, pressing chaste kisses to James’s throat and face. “I’ll take care of you.”

James moans, then falls silent, his ragged breathing the only indicator that Steve’s got a hand on his cock, working him with slow, firm strokes from root to tip. He forgets, almost, about his own dick, caught up in the way James gets wet, just a drop at first and then more, wetting Steve’s palm, lending slick, fleshy sounds to each stroke of his hand.

He gets lost in it, and he doesn’t know who’s more surprised when James comes, suddenly and with no warning beyond a bitten-off yelp that might have been Steve’s name. Steve kisses his throat and works him through each shuddering pulse of his cock. He keeps stroking even as James softens in his grip and the taut lines of his body turns lax with release. James whimpers, a pitiful little sound, as Steve keeps going, but he doesn’t complain, doesn’t even try to squirm away as Steve makes a big, wet mess of his pretty cock.

He lets go, wiping the mess on James’s abdomen, earning a gruff insult. He mollifies James with more kisses to the neck, and he doesn’t miss how easy it is, how James melts more at each one.

Steve kicks off the covers, and it’s not an easy task with the edges trapped under their shared bulk. The room is a little too cold without it, but it’s not so bad with the two of them pressed together like this. Steve’s cock, content to be neglected while he was focused on James’s pleasure, throbs in need. He ruts against James’s leg, grabbing his thigh with one hand.

“I would let you in me again,” James says, voice lazy in a way that speaks less of sleep than pleasant exhaustion, “but I will have enough trouble walking in the morning as it is.”

Steve laughs and bites gently at James’s jaw, sucking a mark that will vanish entirely by morning.

“I know. This is good.”

James makes a dissatisfied sound and reaches back. Steve groans when his fingers wrap around his cock. He expects James to jerk him off, return the favor despite the awkward angle. Instead, James leads Steve’s cock between his legs, thick thighs parting and then squeezing tight.

Steve gasps, heat flooding his whole body.

“There,” James says, pleased. “Fuck me like this.”

“Jesus fucking _Christ_.”

It’s an uncoordinated mess of a fucking. Something about taking James like this worms inside Steve’s head, drives him wild. The sweet kisses of earlier turn sharper, more teeth than lips, and James rewards him with soft little sounds and helpless twitches of his body against Steve’s.

And when he comes, James is the one who moans while Steve buries his breath in the thick flesh where James’s neck meets his shoulder. James’s legs go limp, and Steve gently pulls his soft cock out of the mess he’s made of James’s thighs.

“Thank you,” he says, sighing contentedly.

James laughs, and the sound is weak but incredulous.

“You Americans are strange,” is only dazed response.

“Fucked quite a few of us?” Steve asks, and he means it as a joke, and it comes out light too, but there’s a frisson of displeasure at the thought of James in someone else’s bed.

Steve shakes it off, doesn’t let it show. He’s not the most practical man in the world, but even he knows this isn’t the kind of thing he can get possessive over.

“No,” James says, pulling Steve out of his tentative self-recrimination. “Just the one. But I have had to handle too many of your countrymen.”

“I’m your favorite, of course,” Steve says, half-mumbling the words against James’s neck.

“Of course. Full credit to your cock.”

“James!”

James laughs and Steve does too, amused in spite of himself. A thought resurfaces, a question he had when he first met James.

“You know, I wondered,” he says, and James hums questioningly. “James Barnes isn’t a very Russian name.”

“I understand this might be a novel concept to grasp, given the state of your country, but I believe you have at least heard of immigration.”

Steve swats at James’s hip.

“Asshole. You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh?”

Steve shrugs, well aware that James can feel the motion.

“I’m just…curious, I guess. I don’t know anything about you.”

“That is the point, yes? I’m a ghost, you are a hero. We are not the kind of people whose lives intersect.”

“But they have.”

“They have, yes. This isn’t a conversation we should have with semen drying on us.”

“I’ll clean us up.”

Steve practically leaps out of bed before James can change his mind and say they shouldn’t have this conversation at all. He would feel guilty if he were doing this to extract information on S.H.I.E.L.D’s orders, but he’s not. He has no such orders. He’s just immeasurably curious about this strange, delightful man and sorry, too, that their time together is coming to an end.

When he returns from the bathroom with a soaked towel, James has turned the bedside lamp on and is lying on his back, watching Steve with a slight quirk to his mouth. It’s a pretty sight, and Steve watches him shamelessly. He touches too, running the towel along the mess on James a little more slowly than he needs to. If James asks, Steve will just say he’s being thorough, but James’s half-closed eyes and lazy smile say that he won’t be asking.

Steve cleans himself up too, though there’s not much to do. Most of it got on James. He kisses a freshly cleaned patch of skin and drops the towel on the floor, designating it Future Steve’s problem.

James unfolds one arm from under his head, extending it to the side. Steve happily accepts the unspoken offer and lays down on James’s arm, cuddling up to him.

They’re both wide awake, but despite the little sleep he’s had, Steve doesn’t feel tired. James’s eyes are bright, and he looks happy, grinning over at Steve.

“So,” Steve says, grinning back. “_James_.”

James rolls his eyes.

“I’m American,” he says. “Well, I was born in America. Indiana. But my parents died when I was maybe two. My grandparents took me to Russia. I’m more Russian than American, in any case.”

“Oh,” Steve says, momentarily at a loss of words. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“You did,” James says good-naturedly. “But it is harmless prying. I don’t mind your interest in me.”

“As opposed to my interest in the Winter Soldier?”

This time, James’s smile is sharp and certainly less good-natured.

“Yes. You should understand, Captain America.”

Steve shakes his head with a grimace.

“I do, pal.”

“It’s funny,” James says, thoughtful now, eyeing Steve with an expression he can’t place. “While we’re talking names, I should ask how you have the same name as the first Captain. Steve Rogers can’t be a title. The others had different names.”

And well, this at least is familiar territory.

“It’s my actual, legal name.”

James’s eyebrow does a slow, skeptical sweep towards his forehead before he registers that yes, Steve really is telling the truth. Incredulity replaces doubt, before both are swallowed up in sheer amusement.

“You’re not joking,” James says, and it’s not a question. “Parents a big fan of the Captain?”

“More like the nun who found me at the orphanage had a thing for Saint Stephen,” Steve says lightly. “Anyway, it’s different. He was Steven Grant Rogers. I’m just Steve, Steve Rogers.”

He watches the realization flicker across James’s eyes. But his smile holds no pity, and Steve likes him better for that. Really though, he doesn’t need any more reasons to like this man more. He can’t afford to get attached.

“Fate is a curious thing,” James says.

“I don’t believe in fate.”

“Somehow, Steve, I can believe that.”

Steve doesn’t quite know what to say to that. James’s eyes seem to pierce through him, narrowed slits of blue that tug at Steve’s soul.

“I’m glad we did this,” he blurts out.

James looks startled before a blinding grin takes over his face. There are these things that make him look so young, and that makes Steve ache too, in some strange way.

“Me too.”

“Wish we had more time,” Steve says. It’s not that he means to be a killjoy, just that the words are crowding up his throat and he can’t not say them. “I wish I could – I don’t know. Date you. Hook up. What normal people do.”

James doesn’t laugh but his eyes crinkle at the corners.

“But we aren’t normal people, Steve. And you never know. We might meet again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Drop me a line if you can!


End file.
